200 



A DISCOURSE 



BOOK III. What other prodigious trees do at present, and did formerly, abound 

 '^^"^^'^'^ in that country, may be seen in Dr. Plot's Natural History. Such was 

 an Oak at Narbury, of fifteen yards in girth, which being felled, two men 

 at either side on horseback could not see one another : also an Ash of 

 eight feet diameter, the timber of which was valued at thirty pounds. 



I am told even of a Withy-tree, to be seen somewhere in Berkshire, 

 which is increased to a most stupendous bulk ; and of two Witch Hasel- 

 trees of prodigious size, growing in Oaksey-Park, belonging to Sir 

 Edward Pooles, near Malmsbury, in Wiltshire, not inferior to the largest 

 Oaks : but these, for arriving hastily to their acme and period, and gene- 

 rally not so considerable for their use, I pass to the Ash, Elm, Oak, &c. 



There were of the first of these divers, which measured in length one 

 hundred and thirty-two feet, sold lately in Essex° ; and in the manor of 

 Horton (to go no farther than the parish of Ebsham in Surrey, belonging 

 to my brother Richard Evelyn, Esq.) there are Elms standing in good 

 numbers, which would bear almost three feet square for more than forty 

 feet in height, which is, in my judgment, a very extraordinary matter. — 

 They grow in a moist gravel, and in the hedge-rows. 



Not to insist upon Beech, which are frequently very large, there are 

 Oaks of forty feet high and five feet diameter, yet flourishing in divers 

 old parks of our nobility and gentry ; and Firs of one hundred and fifty 

 feet in height, which are exceeded by one growing in a wood about 

 Bern, by almost one hundred feet, as Chabrous tells us. 



A large and goodly Oak there is at Reedham, in Sir Richard Berney's 

 park of Norfolk, which I am informed was valued at forty pounds the 

 timber, and twelve pounds the lopping wood. 



Nor are we to overpass those memorable trees which so lately flourished 

 in Dennington park, near Newbury ; amongst which three were most 



My very excellent friend Mr. Marsham, of Stratton, near Norwich, informs me that 

 in the year 1767, he measured an Ash-tree in Benel church-yard. North Britain, which, 

 at five feet from the ground, was sixteen feet nine inches in girt. The tree was then in a 

 flourishing and growing state. 



